


Lay us down, we're in love

by crazed_peanut



Series: Of death and other unpleasant things [1]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: AU, Established Relationship, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Sad, Suicide, so possibly triggering, talk of suicide methods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-13 20:37:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5716285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazed_peanut/pseuds/crazed_peanut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This fic deals with the aftermath of Phil's death, limited to Dan's point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lay us down, we're in love

**Author's Note:**

> I don't usually read Major character death fics, but now I write them apparently? I don't know, man. Please if you are struggling with depression, anxiety or suicide thoughts seek help before taking drastic measures.  
> The events and characters in the story are a figment of my imagination.

Dan didn’t make the official statement, he let management deal with that. If he’d sat down he would have struggled to fit the emotions and anger into 140 characters, or a tumblr post, or a video for that matter. He only declared his temporary hiatus from all social media with a tweet. The phandom was resourceful, they’d spread the message, he thought.

A couple of months later he logged in to twitter, just for a quick lurk, and went through his mentions, which were flooded with comments about Phil. From condolences, to support, to “We know how important Phil was to you”. They didn’t fucking know anything. In any case, “was”? What did they fucking think? That Phil dies and suddenly all Dan’s feelings die with him? Phil was still the most important person in his life. In Dan’s miserable, lonely, quiet life.

He tried to go back to making videos, but he felt this enormous pressure to fill Phil’s shoes, to pay tribute to him with exceptionally good content but none of his ideas seemed good enough or worthy enough. His therapist kept insisting it was all in his head and that no one expected anything of him and that he’d feel better if he just posted something, anything. Dan sat down in front of the camera, filmed an entire video, edited it and uploaded it to private on his channel. And all throughout this  he kept thinking if Phil would leave a specific thing in or how he’d cut it together, because he’d always been there before and his input was, Dan came to a conclusion, a vital part of the whole process. Eventually he took the video down and didn’t bother again. That was two years ago, right after his life changed overnight.

Dan basically stopped doing his job, the only real one he’d ever had. The BBC were understanding in the beginning but they eventually sat him down and gave him options, and Dan chose to walk away completely. He moved out, which was a surprise to all those around him. They didn’t understand though, that this was just an apartment, it stopped being a home when the person he was sharing it with died. He didn’t throw all Phil’s things away, but he didn’t exactly keep them either. They were all locked in boxes in a storage unit, along with the filming equipment. It was a compromise, because he couldn’t find it in himself to get rid of the stuff, but he knew looking at them every day would only rip the remainder of his heart to shreds. Separating the items though had been damn near impossible. He and Phil had a joint personal bank account, which meant Dan owned next to nothing he could call just his own. In the end he stored away the majority of their belongings and kept only the essentials.

* * *

 

Dan was sure mourning could be diagnosed as a legitimate mental illness - he used to be depressed as a teenager but the intensity with which grief hit him, and how suddenly it came every time, drew all the air out of his lungs and paralyzed him. He’d carry a pile of things from one room to another, and as he sat them down, he’d think “Phil would have probably dropped all of them.” It was an innocent enough thought, but the familiar sensation of his limbs going numb with grief would appear. He’d go to a shop and, looking at a colorful shirt with animals on it, his mind would entertain the thought how Phil would have liked it. Then he would have to sit down before his legs gave in. Around the six month mark of Phil’s passing he knew the feeling so well, he could hide it. It should have made his family and friends suspicious, but instead they were relieved when Dan didn’t get red and when his eyes wouldn’t fill with tears whenever he was reminded of Phil. Therapy didn’t help much, because he wouldn’t let it. He was sure the therapist could see right through his bullshit “I didn’t cry when I prepared hot chocolate today.”, but she didn’t push him. He let the mourning consume him completely from the inside, but kept telling himself it was okay, because he didn’t show it.

 All the videos on the AmazingPhil channel were still up, because Dan was considerate towards the followers who’d cope with watching them over and over again. He himself never looked at it again. In the end it was just a persona put up for an audience, another mask, and Dan wanted to remember the real Phil Lester, the one he was in private. There weren’t many differences between the two, but for Dan they were all noticeable and he could recite them all.

When he was feeling especially masochistic, he’d look at the countless pictures of Phil he’d taken himself. Phil felt most real to Dan in them, because they were snapped in the moments of no pretending, no putting up an act, but when they were alone together, stripped from their personas and in the roles of each other’s most loved person. That’s the part Dan liked the most for himself and which brought him the most gratification. He was at his element when he was with Phil. They fit perfectly. A particular photo always got to him- it was one from Japan, their dream holiday, in front of the Studio Ghibli museum under an umbrella. It wasn’t the one they’d shared online or in the book, because they’d kissed under that umbrella and Mimei had captured the private moment. Dan was holding the Polaroid and every time, for a moment, it felt like he had his fingers around Phil’s waist and he’d swear he could smell him, before suddenly becoming painfully aware of the very empty room he was sitting in. That’s when the dreaded thought would always flicker in his mind, the first one he had when he learned what had happened: “I can’t live without Phil”. It was a whisper, then it was a shout and then it was an actual real manifestation in front of Dan, the 5 words floating in the air, mocking him, before he’d throw his tears at them and swat them away with his hand.

It didn’t use to be that easy. The first month after Phil’s death he went to bed every night, muttered the phrase into the darkness and wished he wouldn’t wake up. Then on the 32nd day of the rest of his life without Phil, Dan had the sudden realization that he could, in fact, live without him. Phil wasn’t air or water, or food, or even money. He wasn’t essential for Dan’s life in the literal meaning of the word and eventually Dan accepted the change- his world had not crumbled, it only had all the color drained from it. It used to be every shade of every color and now it was black and white, but it still functioned.

* * *

 

A year in was when his friends started commenting on how he should let Phil go.

“He would want you to move on.”

“You’re still young.”

“You’ll find love again.”

“You should just try it- go out on a date, I’m sure you’ve missed it.”

Dan would only say: “I’m not ready.”

Honestly, it would probably be good for him, Dan thought, to meet someone new, have sex, fall in love even. But Phil was Dan’s great love story. It had everything one love story should, and to top it all off, it ended in heartbreak. It was the one shot they both got in life and meeting someone new for Dan would mean settling. The next person won’t be as weird as Phil, as smart, as beautiful, as grounded as him. Or maybe they would be all of those things and more, but they wouldn’t be him. Dan didn’t want to settle for anyone who wasn’t Phil.

* * *

 

On a cold November morning Dan woke up freezing under the thick covers. One would think he’d be used to it by now- he didn’t even remember how Phil’s body felt against his own. In the mornings Phil used to wake up first and press his warm torso against Dan’s. He’d lay a warm hand on Dan’s side or his stomach, just because he knew Dan hated waking up and being cold. Those instances weren’t even a memory anymore. Dan doubted they’d ever happened. He felt removed from his past and on most days what his life used to be was wrapped up in a thick fog and forced behind a glass, Dan on the other side of it and it was a blur, unreachable.

He went on his danisnotonfire social media for the first time in months. His subscriber count had fallen dramatically. There weren’t any recent attempts from followers to reach out to him. It was quiet, expected and relieving. Dan took a relaxed breath. What this all meant to him was that the number of people who’d care what happened to him and who had expectations, had decreased. Until now he’d only had the option of keeping himself together- for the sake of the fandom and for his and Phil’s families.

When it had happened, everyone turned overly protective of Dan. He stayed with Phil’s parents in the time between leaving the old apartment and finding a new one. Phil’s mum would always check up on him in the mornings, and several times throughout the days when he didn't get out of the room he was occupying. She'd cook for him and do his laundry and hide from him when she was crying. She'd lost a son, she’d say, and she wasn't about to lose another one. Dan would be forever grateful for what the Lesters did for him. It had helped him, but it had also trapped him. It would have been selfish, so selfish to go then- when for a lot of people he was the last connection they had with Phil and him just existing allowed them to grieve properly and keep the sense that not everything was lost, that a part of Phil lived on.

Over two years later, when everyone had moved on or at the very least stopped grieving so intensely, Dan woke up on a November morning not for the first time completely aware of how cold and alone he was. Realistically he could get up, get ready for the day and function. Objectively he could live without Phil, as he’d done until now. But he didn’t want to anymore. Today, for the first time, Dan thought “I don’t want to live without Phil.” Who in their right mind would want to live without the love of their lives, he thought? The feeling wasn't "like" anything, not like a permanently grey sky, not like a life without fun. It was unexplainable. He probably should have remembered the date, though that hardly mattered.

So now was the time. Two years had been enough. The decision was made in a split second, but it didn’t feel rushed. Dan would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about it before today, but suddenly the moment was right and he wasn’t scared and he just wanted to be with Phil so bad again.

 It’s not like he could swallow a bunch of pills right in this instant though. There were still contracts to be terminated and wills to be written (those were probably the hardest parts, Dan was met with numerous technicalities). Then there was the small detail of when he’d gone, who would find him. It did not seem fair to Dan to put a friend or a family member through it. He hired a maid and instructed her to come clean his home every Monday. He almost felt bad about her- her only job was essentially to discover his dead body, just she didn’t know it yet.

Christmas rolled around and he traveled home to his family. He spent most of his days now doing things for the last time and this was one of those things. Last Christmas, last meals his mum cooked for him, last time he pet the family dog.  This particular week almost made him back out of the plan. Every day he’d feel such intense guilt that he was going to cause these people, the most important people in his life, the pain and sorrow he’d felt since he lost Phil. But then the nights and early mornings would come and remind him why he’s decided on such drastic measures. On the day he was set to travel back to London, he said his goodbyes with his family and left them with the sweetest last words he had for them, which he hoped didn’t also raise suspicion. Were last words important? He still didn’t know.

The only thing Dan was unsure of was if he wanted to leave a note. What would he even write in it? That he was sorry for doing this? He was and he wasn’t. Would he urge his family to not miss him? He knew that was impossible. He could just write that he didn’t want to be without Phil anymore and explain exactly what Phil meant to him. Yes, that’s probably what he’d do.

Internet proved mighty helpful on his search for the most effective suicide method. In the end he decided to hang himself. A lot of forums seemed to suggest it was the most painless ways to go and he meticulously read through descriptions of people who attempted it. It wasn’t going to be dramatic and it wasn’t going to be pretty, that much Dan knew. He bought some rope and practiced tying the knot a few times. This is one thing he did not want to fuck up.

 Dan searched for his phone underneath all the Polaroids and other mementos he’d retrieved from the storage unit on a Friday. 00:21 on the 14th of January 2019. The date didn’t have any importance to him, it’s just that the maid was coming in the morning and she was crucial to his plan. It would probably have been more tragic if he had one of those old time clocks to strike 12. Real life wasn’t like that though. The silence wasn’t broken by clocks with good timing and loved ones just dropped dead from aneurisms on their way to the shops. Crying was ugly and not cathartic and he didn’t have a particular song playing in his head as he stood up and gathered everything back in a big box. It was silent in the flat and in Dan’s head and once he’d kicked the chair underneath him, it took him all of 10 seconds to lose consciousness.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm sorry if that made you cry. Also, nothing and no one is worth taking your life. Dan in the story is so struck with grief he cannot see that and ask for help. Also, there's a part where he refers to grief as a mental illness. That's because his perception of the world and of emotions is distorted. I’m certainly not trying to downplay the importance of mental illness, or how crippling and hard to deal with it is.  
> Writing phanfics is my coping mechanism, so I'll keep posting them even if they're not good or original.  
> Please stop by in the comments and hit the kudos if you like this!  
> Also, check out my other works here, since I don't have a tumblr!


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